He entered with a gun saying there was no more life for us. Then he fired

Javorka Bogdanovich

The 60-year-old war veteran had been in critical condition after shooting himself in the head following a rampage through his tiny village that left six men, six women and a two-year-old boy dead.

The dead included his son and his mother as he went house-to-house, mainly shooting people in the head as they slept peacefully.

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His wife, Javorka, who was shot twice but survived, earlier offered harrowing testimony of the bloodbath.

"I was in the kitchen where I usually sleep when he entered with a gun saying there was no more life for us. Then he fired," she told police, according to the Vecernje Novosti newspaper.

Hit in the head, the wife heard another shot before fainting. When she regained consciousness she crawled to the bathroom.

"Then I heard the door. He again entered the house and talked to me, surprised to see me alive. He shot me again," the woman was reported as saying.

Some neighbours in the village of Velika Ivanca, 50 kilometres south of Belgrade, initially expressed surprise that he was capable of such violence, but his brother-in-law said he had a history of domestic violence.

"He was brutally beating her [Ms Bogdanovic] when the kids were small. I know that he was nervous and had a bad temper," Zivomir Starcevic told Vecernje Novosti.

"My sister never wanted to admit it, but I found out that he even beat her with a chain," Mr Starcevic said.

Ms Bogdanovic herself told the same paper: "He was very nervous. He was beating me. His father was the same."

The victims are expected to be buried on Friday as Serbia remains in shock and politicians debate the possibility of introducing tougher gun control legislation.